Animadoc
2015/ 30 min
Direction: Falk Schuster

GDR. Summer 1987. Family Schuster from the city of Leipzig crosses the country with a Trabant and a trailer, going on vacation to a private accommodation on the Baltic Sea. The accommodation is located in the small town of Klütz in the immediate vicinity of the then inner German border. Here, things work differently than usual in the GDR. The People´s Police, border brigades, and their civilian helpers have their eyes and ears everywhere. The overzealous authorities are peering and seeing potential refugees from the republic in the holiday paradise.

Intricately produced by the rotoscopy method, each scene had to be shot with extras on video and then retraced frame by frame. Thus, despite minimalism, the animated holiday trip is more authentic than some of the contemporary documents. Through his virtuoso graphic precision and reduction to the essential, the young filmmaker succeeds in producing a small but fine aesthetic masterpiece that, at the same time, takes the spectator in his 4-engine time machine nearly 30 years back in time.

Festivals:
International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film; Animateka Ljubljana, Slovenia; International Short Film Week, Regensburg; Cartoons on the Bay, Venice; Animation Festival Monstra, Lisbon; Film Festival Max Ophuels Prize, Saarbrücken; Film Art Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; Golden Kuker Sofia, Bulgaria

Prizes:
Film Prize of the Minister of Arts in the National Competition - Filmfest Dresden 2016
FBW predicate "particularly valuable"
Kurzsüchtig Leipzig - Audience Award
Grenzland Filmtage Selb - 2nd prize in the documentary category
ARD program premium according to the performance model of the cornerstones 2.0 2017